_THE GOLDEN GONDOLA_
ALBERT'S uncle is tremendously clever, and he writes books. I have toldhow he fled to Southern shores with a lady who is rather nice. Hishaving to marry her was partly our fault, but we did not mean to do it,and we were very sorry for what we had done. But afterwards we thoughtperhaps it was all for the best, because if left alone he might havemarried widows, or old German governesses, or Murdstone aunts, likeDaisy and Denny have, instead of the fortunate lady that we were thecause of his being married by.
The wedding was just before Christmas, and we were all there. And thenthey went to Rome for a period of time that is spoken of in books as thehoneymoon. You know that H.O., my youngest brother, tried to go too,disguised as the contents of a dress-basket--but was betrayed andbrought back.
Conversation often takes place about the things you like, and we oftenspoke of Albert's uncle.
One day we had a ripping game ofhide-and-seek-all-over-the-house-and-all-the-lights-out, sometimescalled devil-in-the-dark, and never to be played except when your fatherand uncle are out, because of the screams which the strongest cannotsuppress when caught by "he" in unexpectedness and total darkness. Thegirls do not like this game so much as we do. But it is only fair forthem to play it. We have more than once played doll's tea-parties toplease them.
Well, when the game was over we were panting like dogs on the hearthrugin front of the common-room fire, and H.O. said--
"I wish Albert's uncle had been here; he does enjoy it so."
Oswald has sometimes thought Albert's uncle only played to please us.But H.O. may be right.
"I wonder if they often play it in Rome," H.O. went on. "That post-cardhe sent us with the Colly-whats-its-name-on--you know, the round placewith the arches. They could have ripping games there----"
"It's not much fun with only two," said Dicky.
"Besides," Dora said, "when people are first married they always sit inbalconies and look at the moon, or else at each other's eyes."
"They ought to know what their eyes look like by this time," said Dicky.
"I believe they sit and write poetry about their eyes all day, and onlylook at each other when they can't think of the rhymes," said Noel.
"I don't believe she knows how, but I'm certain they read aloud to eachother out of the poetry books we gave them for wedding presents," Alicesaid.
"It would be beastly ungrateful if they didn't, especially with theirbacks all covered with gold like they are," said H.O.
"About those books," said Oswald slowly, now for the first time joiningin what was being said; "of course it was jolly decent of Father to getsuch ripping presents for us to give them. But I've sometimes wishedwe'd given Albert's uncle a really truly present that we'd chosenourselves and bought with our own chink."
"I wish we could have _done_ something for him," Noel said; "I'd havekilled a dragon for him as soon as look at it, and Mrs. Albert's unclecould have been the Princess, and I would have let him have her."
"Yes," said Dicky; "and we just gave rotten books. But it's no usegrizzling over it now. It's all over, and he won't get married againwhile she's alive."
This was true, for we live in England which is a morganatic empire wheremore than one wife at a time is not allowed. In the glorious East hemight have married again and again and we could have made it all rightabout the wedding present.
"I wish he was a Turk for some things," said Oswald, and explained why.
"I don't think _she_ would like it," said Dora.
Oswald explained that if he was a Turk, she would be a Turquoise (Ithink that is the feminine Turk), and so would be used to lots of wivesand be lonely without them.
And just then . . . You know what they say about talking of angels, andhearing their wings? (There is another way of saying this, but it is notpolite, as the present author knows.)
Well, just then the postman came, and of course we rushed out, and amongFather's dull letters we found one addressed to "The Bastables Junior."It had an Italian stamp--not at all a rare one, and it was a poorspecimen too, and the post-mark was _Roma_.
That is what the Italians have got into the habit of calling Rome. Ihave been told that they put the "a" instead of the "e" because theylike to open their mouths as much as possible in that sunny andagreeable climate.
The letter was jolly--it was just like hearing him talk (I mean reading,not hearing, of course, but reading him talk is not grammar, and if youcan't be both sensible and grammarical, it is better to be senseless).
"Well, kiddies," it began, and it went on to tell us about things he hadseen, not dull pictures and beastly old buildings, but amusing incidentsof comic nature. The Italians must be extreme Jugginses for the kind ofthings he described to be of such everyday occurring. Indeed, Oswaldcould hardly believe about the soda-water label that the Italiantranslated for the English traveller so that it said, "To distrust ofthe Mineral Waters too fountain-like foaming. They spread the shape."
Near the end of the letter came this:--
"You remember the chapter of 'The Golden Gondola' that I wrote for the_People's Pageant_ just before I had the honour to lead to the altar,&c. I mean the one that ends in the subterranean passage, withGeraldine's hair down, and her last hope gone, and the three villainsstealing upon her with Venetian subtlety in their hearts and Toledodaggers (specially imported) in their garters? I didn't care much for itmyself, you remember. I think I must have been thinking of other thingswhen I wrote it. But you, I recollect, consoled me by refusing to regardit as other than 'ripping.' 'Clinking' was, as I recall it, Oswald'sconsolatory epithet. You'll weep with me, I feel confident, when youhear that my Editor does not share your sentiments. He writes me that itis not up to my usual form. He fears that the public, &c., and he truststhat in the next chapter, &c. Let us hope that the public will, in thismatter, take your views, and not his. Oh! for a really discerningpublic, just like you--you amiable critics! Albert's new aunt isleaning over my shoulder. I can't break her of the distracting habit.How on earth am I ever to write another line? Greetings to all from
"ALBERT'S UNCLE AND AUNT.
"PS.--She insists on having her name put to this, but of course shedidn't write it. I am trying to teach her to spell."
"PSS.--Italian spelling, of course."
"And now," cried Oswald, "I see it all!"
The others didn't. They often don't when Oswald does.
"Why, don't you see!" he patiently explained, for he knows that it isvain to be angry with people because they are not so clever as--as otherpeople. "It's the direct aspiration of Fate. He wants it, does he? Well,he shall have it!"
"What?" said everybody.
"We'll be it."
"_What?_" was the not very polite remark now repeated by all.
"Why, his discerning public."
And still they all remained quite blind to what was so clear to Oswald,the astute and discernful.
"It will be much more useful than killing dragons," Oswald went on,"especially as there aren't any; and it will be a really truly weddingpresent--just what we were wishing we'd given him."
The five others now fell on Oswald and rolled him under the table andsat on his head so that he had to speak loudly and plainly.
THE FIVE OTHERS]
"All right! I'll tell you--in words of one syllable if you like. Let go,I say!" And when he had rolled out with the others and the tablecloththat caught on H.O.'s boots and the books and Dora's workbox, and theglass of paint-water that came down with it, he said--
"We will _be_ the public. We will all write to the editor of the_People's Pageant_ and tell him what we think about the Geraldinechapter. Do mop up that water, Dora; it's running all under where I'msitting."
"Don't you think," said Dora, devoting her handkerchief and Alice's inthe obedient way she does not always use, "that six letters, all signed'Bastable,' and all coming from the same house, would berather--rather----"
"A bit too thick? Yes," said
Alice; "but of course we'd have alldifferent names and addresses."
"We might as well do it thoroughly," said Dicky, "and send three or fourdifferent letters each."
"And have them posted in different parts of London. Right oh!" remarkedOswald.
"_I_ shall write a piece of poetry for mine," said Noel.
"They ought all to be on different kinds of paper," said Oswald. "Let'sgo out and get the paper directly after tea."
We did, but we could only get fifteen different kinds of paper andenvelopes, though we went to every shop in the village.
At the first shop, when we said, "Please we want a penn'orth of paperand envelopes of each of all the different kinds you keep," the lady ofthe shop looked at us thinly over blue-rimmed spectacles and said, "Whatfor?"
And H.O. said, "To write unonymous letters."
"Anonymous letters are very wrong," the lady said, and she wouldn't sellus any paper at all.
But at the other places we did not say what it was for, and they sold itus. There were bluey and yellowy and grey and white kinds, and some wasvioletish with violets on it, and some pink, with roses. The girls tookthe florivorous ones, which Oswald thinks are unmanly for any but girls,but you excuse their using it. It seems natural to them to mess aboutlike that.
We wrote the fifteen letters, disguising our handwritings as much as wecould. It was not easy. Oswald tried to write one of them with his lefthand, but the consequences were almost totally unreadable. Besides, ifany one could have read it, they would only have thought it was writtenin an asylum for the insane, the writing was so delirious. So he chuckedit.
Noel was only allowed to write one poem. It began--
"Oh, Geraldine! Oh, Geraldine! You are the loveliest heroine! I never read about one before That made me want to write more Poetry. And your Venetian eyes, They must have been an awful size; And black and blue, and like your hair, And your nose and chin were a perfect pair."
and so on for ages.
The other letters were all saying what a beautiful chapter "Beneath theDoge's Home" was, and how we liked it better than the other chaptersbefore, and how we hoped the next would be like it. We found out whenall too late that H.O. had called it the "Dog's Home." But we hoped thiswould pass unnoticed among all the others. We read the reviews of booksin the old _Spectators_ and _Athenaeums_, and put in the words they saythere about other people's books. We said we thought that chapter aboutGeraldine and the garters was "subtle" and "masterly" and"inevitable"--that it had an "old-world charm," and was "redolent of thesoil." We said, too, that we had "read it with breathless interest fromcover to cover," and that it had "poignant pathos and a convincingrealism," and the "fine flower of delicate sentiment," besides muchother rot that the author can't remember.
When all the letters were done we addressed them and stamped them andlicked them down, and then we got different people to post them. Ourunder-gardener, who lives in Greenwich, and the other under-gardener,who lives in Lewisham, and the servants on their evenings out, whichthey spend in distant spots like Plaistow and Grove Park--each had aletter to post. The piano-tuner was a great catch--he lived in Highgate;and the electric-bell man was Lambeth. So we got rid of all the letters,and watched the post for a reply. We watched for a week, but no answercame.
You think, perhaps, that we were duffers to watch for a reply when wehad signed all the letters with fancy names like Daisy Dolman, EverardSt. Maur, and Sir Cholmondely Marjoribanks, and put fancy addresses onthem, like Chatsworth House, Loampit Vale, and The Bungalow, EatonSquare. But we were not such idiots as you think, dear reader, and youare not so extra clever as you think, either. We had written _one_letter (it had the grandest _Spectator_ words in it) on our ownletter-paper, with the address on the top and the uncle's coat-of-armsoutside the envelope. Oswald's real own name was signed to this letter,and this was the one we looked for the answer to. See?
But that answer did not come. And when three long days had passed awaywe all felt most awfully stale about it. Knowing the great good we haddone for Albert's uncle made our interior feelings very little better,if at all.
And on the fourth day Oswald spoke up and said what was in everybody'sinside heart. He said--
"This is futile rot. I vote we write and ask that editor why he doesn'tanswer letters."
"He wouldn't answer that one any more than he did the other," said Noel."Why should he? He knows you can't do anything to him for not."
"Why shouldn't we go and ask him?" H.O. said. "He couldn't not answer usif we was all there, staring him in the face."
"I don't suppose he'd see you," said Dora; "and it's 'were,' not 'was.'"
"The other editor did when I got the guinea for my beautiful poems,"Noel reminded us.
"Yes," said the thoughtful Oswald; "but then it doesn't matter how youngyou are when you're just a poetry-seller. But we're the discerningpublic now, and he'd think we ought to be grown up. I say, Dora, supposeyou rigged yourself up in old Blakie's things. You'd look quite twentyor thirty."
Dora looked frightened, and said she thought we'd better not.
But Alice said, "Well, I will, then. I don't care. I'm as tall as Dora.But I won't go alone. Oswald, you'll have to dress up old and come too.It's not much to do for Albert's uncle's sake."
"You know you'll enjoy it," said Dora, and she may have wished that shedid not so often think that we had better not. However, the dye was nowcast, and the remainder of this adventure was doomed to be coloured bythe dye we now prepared. (This is an allegory. It means we had burnedour boats. And that is another.)
We decided to do the deed next day, and during the evening Dicky andOswald went out and bought a grey beard and moustache, which was theonly thing we could think of to disguise the manly and youthful form ofthe bold Oswald into the mature shape of a grown-up and discerningpublic character.
Meanwhile, the girls made tiptoe and brigand-like excursions into MissBlake's room (she is the housekeeper) and got several things. Amongothers, a sort of undecided thing like part of a wig, which Miss Blakewears on Sundays. Jane, our housemaid, says it is called a"transformation," and that duchesses wear them.
We had to be very secret about the dressing-up that night, and to putBlakie's things all back when they had been tried on.
Dora did Alice's hair. She twisted up what little hair Alice has got bynatural means, and tied on a long tail of hair that was Miss Blake'stoo. Then she twisted that up, bun-like, with many hairpins. Then thewiglet, or transformation, was plastered over the front part, and MissBlake's Sunday hat, which is of a very brisk character, with half a bluebird in it, was placed on top of everything. There were severalpetticoats used, and a brown dress and some stockings and hankies tostuff it out where it was too big. A black jacket and crimson tiecompleted the picture. We thought Alice would do.
Then Oswald went out of the room and secretly assumed his dark disguise.But when he came in with the beard on, and a hat of Father's, the otherswere not struck with admiration and respect, like he meant them to be.They rolled about, roaring with laughter, and when he crept into MissBlake's room and turned up the gas a bit, and looked in her long glass,he owned that they were right and that it was no go. He is tall for hisage, but that beard made him look like some horrible dwarf; and his hairbeing so short added to everything. Any idiot could have seen that thebeard had not originally flourished where it now was, but had beentransplanted from some other place of growth.
And when he laughed, which now became necessary, he really did look mostawful. He has read of beards wagging, but he never saw it before.
While he was looking at himself the girls had thought of a new idea.
But Oswald had an inside presentiment that made it some time before hecould even consent to listen to it. But at last, when the othersreminded him that it was a noble act, and for the good of Albert'suncle, he let them explain the horrid scheme in all its lurid parts.
It was this: T
hat Oswald should consent to be disguised in women'sraiments and go with Alice to see the Editor.
No man ever wants to be a woman, and it was a bitter thing for Oswald'spride, but at last he consented. He is glad he is not a girl. You haveno idea what it is like to wear petticoats, especially long ones. Iwonder that ladies continue to endure their miserable existences. Thetop parts of the clothes, too, seemed to be too tight and too loose inthe wrong places. Oswald's head, also, was terribly in the way. He hadno wandering hairs to fasten transformations on to, even if Miss Blakehad had another one, which was not the case. But the girls remembered agoverness they had once witnessed whose hair was brief as any boy's, sothey put a large hat, with a very tight elastic behind, on to Oswald'shead, just as it was, and then with a tickly, pussyish, featherish thinground his neck, hanging wobblily down in long ends, he looked moreyoung-lady-like than he will ever feel.
Some courage was needed for the start next day. Things look so differentin the daylight.
"Remember Lord Nithsdale coming out of the Tower," said Alice. "Think ofthe great cause and be brave," and she tied his neck up.
"I'm brave all right," said Oswald, "only I do feel such an ass."
"I feel rather an ape myself," Alice owned, "but I've gotthree-penn'orth of peppermints to inspire us with bravery. It is calledDutch courage, I believe."
Owing to our telling Jane we managed to get out unseen by Blakie.
All the others would come, too, in their natural appearance, except thatwe made them wash their hands and faces. We happened to be flush ofchink, so we let them come.
"But if you do," Oswald said, "you must surround us in a hollow squareof four."
So they did. And we got down to the station all right. But in the trainthere were two ladies who stared, and porters and people like that cameround the window far more than there could be any need for. Oswald'sboots must have shown as he got in. He had forgotten to borrow a pair ofJane's, as he had meant to, and the ones he had on were his largest. Hisears got hotter and hotter, and it got more and more difficult to managehis feet and hands. He failed to suck any courage, of any nation, fromthe peppermints.
OSWALD SAW THE DRIVER WINK AS HE PUT HIS BOOT ON THESTEP, AND THE PORTER WHO WAS OPENING THE CAB DOOR WINKED BACK.]
Owing to the state Oswald's ears were now in, we agreed to take a cab atCannon Street. We all crammed in somehow, but Oswald saw the driver winkas he put his boot on the step, and the porter who was opening the cabdoor winked back, and I am sorry to say Oswald forgot that he was ahigh-born lady, and he told the porter that he had better jolly wellstow his cheek. Then several bystanders began to try and be funny, andOswald knew exactly what particular sort of fool he was being.
But he bravely silenced the fierce warnings of his ears, and when we gotto the Editor's address we sent Dick up with a large card that we hadwritten on,
"MISS DAISY DOLMAN and THE RIGHT HONOURABLE MISS ETHELTRUDA BUSTLER. On urgent business."
and Oswald kept himself and Alice concealed in the cab till the returnof the messenger.
"All right; you're to go up," Dicky came back and said; "but the boygrinned who told me so. You'd better be jolly careful."
We bolted like rabbits across the pavement and up the Editor's stairs.
He was very polite. He asked us to sit down, and Oswald did. But firsthe tumbled over the front of his dress because it would get under hisboots, and he was afraid to hold it up, not having practised doing this.
"I think I have had letters from you?" said the Editor.
HE LOOKED AT OSWALD'S BOOTS.]
Alice, who looked terrible with the transformation leaningright-ear-ward, said yes, and that we had come to say what a fine,bold conception we thought the Doge's chapter was. This was what wehad settled to say, but she needn't have burst out with it like that. Isuppose she forgot herself. Oswald, in the agitation of his clothes,could say nothing. The elastic of the hat seemed to be very slowlyslipping up the back of his head, and he knew that, if it once passedthe bump that backs of heads are made with, the hat would spring fromhis head like an arrow from a bow. And all would be frustrated.
"Yes," said the Editor; "that chapter seems to have had a greatsuccess--a wonderful success. I had no fewer than sixteen letters aboutit, all praising it in unmeasured terms." He looked at Oswald's boots,which Oswald had neglected to cover over with his petticoats. He now didthis.
"It _is_ a nice story, you know," said Alice timidly.
"So it seems," the gentleman went on. "Fourteen of the sixteen lettersbear the Blackheath postmark. The enthusiasm for the chapter would seemto be mainly local."
Oswald would not look at Alice. He could not trust himself, with herlooking like she did. He knew at once that only the piano-tuner and theelectric bell man had been faithful to their trust. The others had allposted their letters in the pillar-box just outside our gate. Theywanted to get rid of them as quickly as they could, I suppose.Selfishness is a vile quality.
The author cannot deny that Oswald now wished he hadn't. The elastic wascertainly moving, slowly, but too surely. Oswald tried to check itscareer by swelling out the bump on the back of his head, but he couldnot think of the right way to do this.
"I am very pleased to see you," the Editor went on slowly, and there wassomething about the way he spoke that made Oswald think of a cat playingwith a mouse. "Perhaps you can tell me. Are there many spiritualists inBlackheath? Many clairvoyants?"
"Eh?" said Alice, forgetting that that is not the way to behave.
"People who foretell the future?" he said.
"I don't think so," said Alice. "Why?"
His eye twinkled. Oswald saw he had wanted her to ask this.
"Because," said the Editor, more slowly than ever, "I think there mustbe. How otherwise can we account for that chapter about the 'Doge'sHome' being read and admired by sixteen different people before it iseven printed. That chapter has not been printed, it has not beenpublished; it will not be published till the May number of the _People'sPageant_. Yet in Blackheath sixteen people already appreciate itssubtlety and its realism and all the rest of it. How do you account forthis, Miss Daisy Dolman?"
"I am the Right Honourable Etheltruda," said Alice. "At least--oh, it'sno use going on. We are not what we seem."
"Oddly enough, I inferred that at the very beginning of our interview,"said the Editor.
Then the elastic finished slipping up Oswald's head at the back, and thehat leapt from his head exactly as he had known it would. He fielded itdeftly, however, and it did not touch the ground.
"Concealment," said Oswald, "is at an end."
"So it appears," said the Editor. "Well, I hope next time the author ofthe 'Golden Gondola' will choose his instruments more carefully."
"He didn't! We aren't!" cried Alice, and she instantly told the Editoreverything.
Concealment being at an end, Oswald was able to get at his trouserspocket--it did not matter now how many boots he showed--and to get outAlbert's uncle's letter.
Alice was quite eloquent, especially when the Editor had made her takeoff the hat with the blue bird, and the transformation and the tail, sothat he could see what she really looked like. He was quite decent whenhe really understood how Albert's uncle's threatened marriage must haveupset his brain while he was writing that chapter, and pondering on thedark future.
He began to laugh then, and kept it up till the hour of parting.
He advised Alice not to put on the transformation and the tail again togo home in, and she didn't.
Then he said to me: "Are you in a finished state under Miss DaisyDolman?" and when Oswald said, "Yes," the Editor helped him to take offall the womanly accoutrements, and to do them up in brown paper. And helent him a cap to go home in.
I never saw a man laugh more. He is an excellent sort.
But no slow passage of years, however many, can ever weaken Oswald'
smemory of what those petticoats were like to walk in, and how ripping itwas to get out of them, and have your own natural legs again.
We parted from that Editor without a strain on anybody's character.
He must have written to Albert's uncle, and told him all, for we got aletter next week. It said--
"MY DEAR KIDDIES,--Art cannot be forced. Nor can Fame. May I beg you for the future to confine your exertions to blowing my trumpet--or Fame's--with your natural voices? Editors may be led, but they won't be druv. The Right Honourable Miss Etheltruda Bustler seems to have aroused a deep pity for me in my Editor's heart. Let that suffice. And for the future permit me, as firmly as affectionately, to reiterate the assurance and the advice which I have so often breathed in your long young ears, '_I am not ungrateful; but I do wish you would mind your own business._'"
"That's just because we were found out," said Alice. "If we'd succeededhe'd have been sitting on the top of the pinnacle of Fame, and he wouldhave owed it all to us. That would have been making him something like awedding present."
What we had really done was to make something very like----but theauthor is sure he has said enough.